When Franco Zeffirelli's production of Mozart's "Don Giovanni" was introduced at the Metropolitan Opera in 1990, the general assessment was that the sets were clunky and the staging clueless. Truth to tell, few officials at the company disagreed. Rather than tossing it out and staring over, the Met totally revamped the production to open the 2000-1 season.
Mr. Zeffirelli's sets, dominated by gigantic columns that awkwardly slid sideways and grim painted drops, were retained. But new lighting was devised, new costumes were designed, and the imaginative director Stephen Lawless, working with a superb cast headed by Bryn Terfel in the title role and Renée Fleming as Donna Anna, completely restaged the opera. With James Levine presiding from the pit, the revival was a triumph. It even looked great when broadcast later on public television.
When the Met concentrates talent and resources on a production so successfully, it's hard to recreate the achievement later with a different cast and conductor, however eminent. On Friday night the Met brought its "Don Giovanni" back, this time with the baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky, an acclaimed Don, singing the role for the first time at the house. Though the cast, with one exception, was admirable and the overall performance was effective, the performance lacked the intensity and focus that made the restaged production so special two years ago.
Mr. Hvorostovsky was the most elegant Don Giovanni imaginable. With his flowing white mane, lanky agility and subdued charisma, he was an unflappably aristocratic seducer. The alluring qualities of his voice, one of the most distinctive in opera, were there to marvel at: the silken-smooth legato phrasing, the tonal richness, the dusky colorings of his middle and lower ranges. When he sang the Don's serenade below Donna Elvira's balcony in Act II, he forgot all about his intended victim (Elvira's young maid) and turned his subtle charms directly on the audience. It worked. His singing was disarmingly sensual.
Mr. Hvorostovsky doesn't have an enormous sound, and he wisely knows better than to force it. Yet at times there was a curiously covered, almost muffled quality to his singing.
In the end his performance had too much elegance and too little menace. The dynamic, robust-voiced bass-baritone Richard Bernstein brought more danger and volatility to the role of Leporello, the Don's hapless servant. Perhaps the impact of Mr. Hvorostovsky's Don Giovanni would be greater in a smaller house.
Barbara Frittoli was a radiant Donna Anna. In recent years this fine Italian lyric soprano has been singing vocally weightier roles like Verdi's Luisa Miller and Leonora in "Il Trovatore." Perhaps that explains the slightly rougher quality that has crept into her sound. Still, her singing was full-bodied, clear and expressive.
The tenor Michael Schade was a lyrically ardent Don Ottavio. The sweet-voice soprano Rebecca Evans and the promising young bass-baritone Oren Gradus, who displayed a husky voice and hardy stage presence, were charming as Zerlina and Masetto. The bass Eric Halfvarson made an imposing Commendatore.
As Donna Elvira, Carol Vaness had a rough night. As always, she gave an impassioned and committed performance. You sensed a clear musical intention behind every phrase. But Ms. Vaness, who began her career as a lovely lyric soprano, has been pushing her voice hard for many years in roles like Salome and Lady Macbeth, and her singing was marred by shrill tone and wobbling vibrato.
The French conductor Sylvain Cambreling, a respected figure in European opera, led a finely textured and vividly colored performance. Still it just did not match the lithe, incisive and vibrant account of the score that the Met orchestra delivered under Mr. Levine two seasons ago for the revamped revival.
The Met's recent revival of Jürgen Flimm's powerful production of Beethoven's "Fidelio," another highlight of the 2000-1 season, was a similar letdown. But revivals of great productions don't always have to be disappointments, as the Met's current presentation of Poulenc's "Dialogues des Carmélites" makes clear. With an excellent, involved and mostly young cast, and James Conlon's inspired conducting, John Dexter's 1977 production is more stunning and pertinent than ever. With this "Don Giovanni," though, the company is competing with memories of itself at its best.